stiimpee's Journal

Nothing new really, just stopping by to write a bit.  Had a FAB weekend.  My dad lives in the city and I invited him out for the long weekend.  He had surgery earlier in the year to have his hip replaced so he's only now started to get out and about.  Needless to say, we had a full weekend.  The weather was incredible all weekend long which is amazing in itself.  Thursday night I made dinner and we just hung out.  Friday we grilled steak and shrimp and enjoyed the weather.  Friday evening we had sparklers, snakes, smoke bombs, and all the legally allowed stuff.  We went to see a fireworks display in the evening and had a great time.  I was worried the baby would be scared, but he loved it.  He was running around looking up at the sky yelling "boom!  Boom-Boom!"  Too funny.  Saturday I caught up on chores and the never ending laundry pile, plus we grilled again.  Yummers!  Sunday was church and then a trip to Target.  Dad left in the late afternoon and it was back to the usual by Sunday evening.  The kids enjoyed his company especially because they don't get to see him but a few times a year.  All and all, a full and happy weekend.

The Ex?  Not too much to say about him for a change.  (I know... shocking!)  He came this morning and will take the kids today and tomorrow and bring them back tomorrow evening.  (my oldest dreads it.  He said he doesn't like sleeping there and wants to just stay home)  My ex comes in this morning and starts complaining about his job and that the manager was fired and he heard they'd be closing the place by the end of the month.  My response?  Scary.  Sounds like you need to start pounding the pavement right away.  I'm guessing he won't do anything but will continue to complain about it.  At my job, we were due payroll checks on June 30th.  No one got paid.  Today is the 7th.  Still no one has been paid.  Except for me and three other people?  Why?  Because the president took money out of his personal savings to cover our payroll.  I felt pretty lucky that he thought enough about me to count me in the few that got paid.  And yes, this is the same person that fired me last Sept via email.  Odd but true.  But the light is at the end of the tunnel.  The big "sale" is supposed to take place by month end, and hopefully at that point things will get better.  We will see!

Missing him.  My therapist said I will never really know for sure, but based on my ex spending time with his "new friend" even when the kids are with him, it really does sound like they are more than friends.  She said whether she is or isn't more than a friend, I will have to come to terms with the idea that he may have left me for another woman.

That hurts......

I've kind of known all along that this probably IS what happened, but to hear someone actually say it out loud?  Doesn't feel so hot.

Okay, been thinking about what JT said re: my last JE.  I had a vision of what I thought my ex should be.  I've been really going over in my head who my ex was and who he is.  My first attraction to him was and still is lust.  Obviously not a good basis, merely a start as you need to be attracted to someone first, right?  He was very good to me for the first couple of years, and I guess that is what I always looked back to, wondering if he was that attentive at one time, what happened?  Yes, that is where my vision was.... looking back at the man he was, the husband he was, and the man and father he should have been but never grew into.  Were we compatible?  Maybe at once time long ago. Back then we had a lot in common and he was a kinder, gentler, sweeter person... but as our lives added more responsibility, he became less mature and more stressed out.  He started to become the type of person I didn't want to be with.  (Angry, swearing, hot temper, pissed off at the world.)  I kept growing, maturing, evolving and he didn't.  He seems to still be in the same place he was 2, 5 and even 8 years ago.  He went to college early during the marriage, got his degree, I got pregnant right after graduation as planned and then he just stalled.  He didn't really pursue his career and just settled into being a stay at home dad, complaining all along that it was okay but we had no other options so that was what it would have to be.  Fast forward to him leaving: He is still not doing anything about his career, still complaining about life in general, and blames everyone for everything that isn't right in his life.  I fell in love with him because he was kind, gentle, sweet, open minded, loving, easy going, etc.  (not gonna go on and on about it.)  What he evolved into is just the opposite.  When he left, he acted like all of his unhappiness was due to the marriage and he needed to go out and find himself and do what he needed to do to make himself happy.  But based on the little pieces that he's willing to share, he is miserable more often than not.  Okay, this JE wasn't supposed to default to his unhappiness.  I digress.  I think my issue is I am not in love with "being in love, or being married", but I am in love with the man that he was many years ago and the man he was supposed to become but never did.  I also have attachment because he is the father of our children.  And another big issue is that I come from divorce, twice over.  My mother is on her third marriage and my father's 2nd wife left him after 30 years.  So I didn't get married until I was 30 and even had kids later (first at 37 and second at 42) because I wanted a sure thing, a marriage that would last my lifetime, and a family that would be whole and not broken.  And to seal it with good luck, we got married on what was my grandparents wedding day.  They were married more than 60 years until my grandfather passed in 1996.  Talk about adding insult to injury.  Now I very much regret that I insisted on getting married on their wedding day, because our anniversary might have just been another date on the calendar.  Instead, it is a double hurt.  I know what type of man I need to be with, I know that no matter how much I wished for it to be my ex, it wasn't him.  It might have been at one time, but I don't see him ever being that man again.  I think that is the part that has been hurting me most, over and over again.  That is what always makes me feel betrayed.  The fact that he is not the man I married, not the man he portrayed himself to be, and not the man he should have evolved into.  I married who I thought was my dream guy;  I really couldn't even believe that he loved me to be honest.  I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Well, it did.  But I guess love is blind because I've had too many people fess up to how they really feel.  My boss said "You should have got rid of that loser years ago."  OUCH. My girlfriend?  "I never understood what you saw in him.  You could do so much better."  Geeesh... not only was I blind, maybe I was wearing triple lense sunglasses too.  I'm still hurting, still missing, still crying (not on a regular basis) and I think it will be a long, long time before I'm in a place to love again.  I suppose I will know when I am ready and it certainly isn't now.  I think my biggest fear is that I thought I met the right man the last time; how was I to know that two or three years later he would change?  So if I eventually get back out into the dating pool (UGH at the thought of it), I know what attributes to look for in a man... but my worry is that how do I know that he is who he appears to be and how to I know that he won't change?  I know there is no way to know that, but I think about how my ex used to say "Don't worry, I would never hurt you, we will be together forever, us not being together isn't even an option."  Famous last words.  He knew that  I had been hurt before, not once, but twice.  (Cheaters)  He was the last person I ever expected to betray me.  I thought I could trust him, and I couldn't.  How can I not be gun-shy after that? 

Yeah... I'm rambling.  I know......